TRUST BETRAYED

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIX, Issue 21971, 24 May 1941, Page 5

TRUST BETRAYED

JUDGE "TOOK A CHANCE” WITH THIEF Three months ago a man who had been described as a daring London gangster walked with me from Manchester Assize Court into the bright sunshine of a mid-winter afternoon, writes a “News of the World” correspondent. The tears were running down his cheeks. The man, John Philip Ivan Tilley, aged 33, of Manor Park, London, who had admitted being concerned in the theft of furs valued at £l3OO from a Liverpool shop, had pleaded for a chance. He said he was anxious to serve his country by joining the merchant navy. Last Chance “I am going to take a big chance with you,” Mr Justice Stable then told Tilley. "I believe there may be some real good in you, and I am going to bind you over. Good luck!” Tilley told me he would never let the Judge down. “May God bless him!” he said as he left Manchester to join a ship at Liverpool. But Tilley betrayed the trust. After one short trip to Canada he went to London and joined some members of a gang, with whom he returned to Liverpool. Through the prompt action of policeman he was arrested when attempting to rob a jeweller’s shop a few weeks ago, and again committed to Manchester Assizes for trial. In the same Court, and before the same judge, Tilley now stood dejectedly while counsel gave details of the gang’s latest activities.

“I said it was the last chance you would ever get,” Mr Justice Stable told Tilley. "It is—you will go to penal servitude for seven years.”